Their impact is so much bigger and I aspire so much to have as a deep understanding of the Javascript world as they do.
Maybe they'd do better operating out of of somewhere cheaper. Many older open source projects including those I contribute to aren't owned by a single company, aren't trying to build a business and still manage to be popular and useful.
~7.5% extra tax right off the top, versus salaried (employer usually pays that part for salaried employees, and it's not stated as being part of one's salary, ever) in addition to all the usual taxes.
Our version of a "public pension" is terrible, so you'll need some contributions to a 401K if you ever want to retire, and unlike someone salaried the employer won't be chipping in any extra above your salary (typical for salaried employees is some % of "matching" money for your contributions, so you put in 3% of salary and your employer puts in the same amount, above your salary). Then there's the fact that for any competitive goods (say, housing in a decent school district near where jobs exist) you're competing with people who are choosing not to save that money, so there's pressure on prices that wouldn't exist with a better compulsory pension system.
Health care for a family will probably run 1.5-2k/month without an employer chipping in, and still leave you exposed to $20k-$30k of risk per year ("out-of-pocket max") and spending another $500-$1,000/yr even in a good year.
Depending on your arrangement, you may have to deduct pay for any vacation or sick days taken. Take 30 working days out of that (not unusual for sick + vacation in Europe, if we're comparing to European total comp) and that's another ~10% of your annual pay gone.
Senior engineers can go for twice that... Of you live in the EU, have a CS degree, make 2k USD/mo, consider relocation to maybe Norway :)
US salaries are higher than European ones, but that is mainly because Americans need to account for healthcare and (especially in SV) extremely high cost of living.
I have a ~62 m² 3 room flat in somewhat center of Munich and pay only 1.000€ a month in rent, whereas in the US judging by a quick google you'll end up with 2k for a 1 BR.
My $0 premium health care plan has only a $2000 deductible, $6000 out of pocket max, 20% coinsurance for “big” procedures, $10 copay (regardless of deductible) for primary care, and I actually get PAID a $500 yearly health stipend for going to the gym.
On the other hand, I’m a 22 year old male who goes to the gym several times a week, eats home-cooked nutritious and healthy food, and works a desk job so...
Edited: Copay is deductible-agnostic
I broke my arm and got paid time off since I couldn't do the job while I was healing.
I have no gap in health insurance if I do not work: I don't have to consider such a thing when looking for a new job. You might be healthy, but other people aren't (or their family isn't) - which means they stay at a job they might otherwise not. Fast food workers and children and office workers all get the same level of care.
If things do go wrong, they will send a nurse to my house up to 6 times a day, which helps folks not have to quit their jobs to take care of family. ANd a bunch of little stuff like that. While you might not use this stuff now, your family members probably could use some of this.
Maybe the salary differences really are just $6000 a year?
So, realistically, you have to account and budget for about ~330$ a month of your wages going away additionally for your healthcare during employment term negotiations.
> we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source
The people getting $2,000 per month are part-time:
> a "part-time" rate: we could initially afford $2,000 USD per month.
It is also explained that if possible, they would go full-time and the salary would then be raised to "the full-time rate".
> Our hope was by announcing this plan and continuing our fundraising efforts, we would be able to increase the budget and raise them to the full-time rate.
I think I know why they're running out of money!
Seriously that's an amazing salary in 99% of the world for working on commercial software where you don't get to decide what to do, can't remote work, probably aren't working on your passion project, etc. etc.